Peripeteia
by onewithroses
Summary: Stiles wakes up on the side of the road with asphalt embedded in his right cheek and the taste of copper in his mouth. His first thought is, where is Scott? Because out of everyone, Scott is the most likely person to have been involved in whatever got him here.
1. Chapter 1

******Notes: **Peripeteia: A sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances, esp. in reference to fictional narrative.

This is based on this head cannon.

I'm also keeping some of the same personal head cannon for family members from Dust Under Our Feet for this story. So… if you're reading both you might see similarities. I think of it as though these two stories started at the same place but diverged.

**Scheherazade** by Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake  
and dress them in warm clothes again.  
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running  
until they forget that they are horses.  
It's not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,  
it's more like a song on a policeman's radio,  
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days  
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple  
to slice into pieces.  
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means  
we're inconsolable.  
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.  
These, our bodies, possessed by light.  
**Tell me we'll never get used to it.**

Stiles wakes up on the side of the road with asphalt embedded in his right cheek and the taste of copper in his mouth. His first thought is, _where is Scott?_

Because out of everyone, Scott is the most likely person to have been involved in whatever got him _here_. Or, rather, he is most likely to have brought along Scott if whatever it was was his idea. Derek, Erika, Allison-even Jackson might have started to become staples, but no one beats Scott for a stupid idea.

Half of them are Scott's, after all.

It's only his third-no, fourth thought that manages to grab _where am I?_ And by then he's sitting up swaying, staring at the row of trees and road dressed in twilight like it will open up and tell him.

In a way, it does.

It's cold. His breath comes out in white whips. He feels like Rip Van Winkle because he's dressed for summer and swears the last time he was outside it was 95 degrees and sunny.

It's not sunny now. There's a layer of frost covering his feet and his body feels numb against the prickle of late-season grass. In front of him is a street sign he can't quite read. Behind him is more woods or more road-he hasn't found it in him to check, notice, care.

Stiles thinks, somewhat hysterically, that this is his life: some werewolf masquerade mixed with _The Hangover_, and he hopes to hell that he doesn't have to find Scott and get him to his wedding because he seems to have lost six months between July and today.

Derek, he thinks, would be the tiger in the bathroom.

When Stiles finally gets his feet under him, he drags himself to the sign. It says: _Bay Berry Road_. Bay Berry is so far away it's almost out of town. It circles the long side of the woods and Stiles finally pats himself down, looking for his phone.

It's not there.

Figures.

Stiles huffs a cloud at the sign and puts his hands on his hips. No one is there to see him, his chest aches with cold and the bruising he got from _nowhere_, and he thinks-wouldn't it be fitting just to take the sign? I'd be a perfect souvenir for that one time that Stiles himself admitted _I went too far_.

He's still staring when a black camaro rolls up. For a moment he thinks it'll be Derek there to drag him back to reality. Instead a woman a woman leans out the window. "Hey." Stiles doesn't move. He's still staring at the sign trying to decide if he wants to steal it. "Hey-Kid!"

He's too cold to startle. Instead he turns slowly and stares at her. She's pretty, in her own way-older that Stiles with light brown hair and sharp eyes. Familiar in an unfamiliar way. She smiles at him and Stiles is struck with the feeling of _wolf_ before he clamps down on it.

Not everyone is a werewolf. Not even if they are driving around some desolate stretch of wooded road. Stiles is not red riding hood.

"Hey." This time it's softer, as though she thinks speaking louder will send him running into the woods. "You okay? Need a ride somewhere?"

"No-I-" Stiles starts to answer before he thinks and he pats his pockets again as though to check. Yes. Still empty. No cell phone. No car keys. Just a handful of mountain ash and a receipt from July 24th for a red slushy at the 7-11 in town. "I-can I borrow your phone?"

His dad would be shocked-lost for words and admitting he must have gone too far. It's a day for the history books, but no one else is around to record it.

"No reception out here." It sounds like a lie, but Stiles can't see any benefit to lying. He's not some teenage girl alone in the dark-he's a _boy_ for one. For another, he's the Sheriff's son. "Why don't you hop in? I live nearby."

No one lives nearby, Stiles wants to say. The only ones who lived nearby were the Hales and the Hale's...well. Derek has finally gotten an apartment in town and stopped staying in the burnt out husk of a building that had once been a home.

"I gotta tell you, if you're thinking of defiling me it's far too late for that." Stiles pulls the quip from somewhere deep inside as he slides into the passenger seat. "Not to mention my dad would hunt you down. Forever."

"Yeah?" The woman quirks an eyebrow at his lack of seatbelt once the door is closed and Stiles buckles up dutifully. "And who would that be?"

It's not the most artful prod for information, but Stiles gives it to her anyway, slumping against the passenger side door, "Sheriff Stilinski."

The car jerks, and Stiles' eyes flash open as he hits the seat belt. Bruises on bruises. It's all he can do not to wheeze. "Hey!"

"Sorry." The woman is eyeing him like there's something stranger going on than picking up teenage boys with road rash in the middle of nowhere. "Deer."

Stiles surreptitiously scans the darken street before them. There is no deer. "So, yeah." He flashes her a tight smile. "What's your name again?"

"Laura Hale."

And isn't that the biggest pile of _bullshit_ Stiles has ever heard in his _life_-and Stiles has heard more than his fair share. "Uh-huh. Okay." He says-because what do you say to someone who is bullshiting you while they're driving? Call them on it and have them crash into the tree line?

'Laura' seems to agree because she keeps sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye. She almost crashes once more, into a ditch along a long stretch of wooded street, and by the time they roll up to a house in the middle of the woods, Stiles is on the edge of his seat. He considers throwing himself from the car. As is, he is estimating his survival rating if he gets out as the car stops and starts running.

He does neither because he _knows_ the house the stop at.

Four story. White paint. The last time he visited it, it was gutted and a hazard. Broken floorboards, torn up banisters, and the smell of smoke long gone.

This house is four stories. White paint. Potted winter plants on the porch-though none seem to be flowering now. There are lights on on the first floor and third. There are shadows across the curtains and when he opens the door-slowly, slowly-he swears he can hear some music. A little laughter.

"Well, Stilinski, my mom's probably making dinner." Laura is out of the car and at his side-one firm arm around his, grounding him. "She'll be thrilled to have a guest." She smiles and Stiles swears for a moment he can see in inch of Derek in her. It's not quite happy, more determined, but real all the same. "Though you'll probably need to wash up first."

It is then that Stiles remembers he's still covered with gravel. He sucks on his teeth as he pulls in a breath and grimaces at the taste. "Yeah-yeah. Then I have to call my dad."

He sounds a lot younger than he wants but his feet are on some porch steps which should be rotted through but aren't.

The front door bursts and there's a kid - easily two years younger than him with blond hair and brown eyes. "Laura! You're-" The words are cut in half and the boy frowns, crossing his arms over his chest "Who's this?"

"Guest for dinner, Phil. Go tell my mom."

Phil Marks-son of Paul Marks and Jessica Hale. He had been a few grades behind Stiles, and he and his sister had been home schooled.

Eight people dead.

Phil disappears into the house, and the next thing Stiles knows is he's being blinded by the lights, the heat, and noise.

This is not the husk of a house where eight people died. This is a home where eleven people live on four floors. They whisk around an older couple-grandparents, Derek's grandparents-who are setting a long table in the dining room and up a set of stairs. Stiles is too frozen to protest, ask to stop, or spit out _what is going on_.

"Derek." Laura's voice is a command and Stiles suddenly notices they are on the second floor in front of a bedroom. It looks normal enough-sort of like it hasn't been updated in several years. Wood floors falling into dark blue carpet. College student normal, Stiles assesses distantly. "We've a guest. Get out of the bathroom and help him get cleaned up." Laura pauses, looks down at Stiles' ripped t-shirt and jeans, the ground in dirt and blood on his cheek. "Give him a pair of your pants."

"Give what-?" Derek comes out from what must be the adjoining bathroom toweling his hair. He's clean shaven and shirtless and the look on his face is comical. Bemused confusion. It's a look Stiles assumed he'd never see on the Alpha's face unless he were well and truly wasted. "Who's this?"

"Stilinski's kid." She eyes her brother, then Stiles. "Yeah, he's a little skinnier than you but the length will be fine. Pants him."

Then Laura is gone and Stiles is left standing in the doorway looking like roadkill in front of a facsimile of one Derek Hale: Beacon Hill's Alpha.

At least he looks a little more like the Derek he knows now. Gone is the bemused expression and in with the frowning foreboding look of Derek. It almost makes Stiles relax. Almost.

"Come in." Derek says after a moment. He reaches out and Stiles almost jerks away. He shuffles in suddenly feeling every ache from the side of the road and hyper aware of the silent assessment _this_ 'Hale' is giving him.

Everything is borderline normal until that teasing smile curls across Derek's lips, "I'm not going to bite, you know."

And that everything wrong summed up. Derek has always been aggressive. Biting notwithstanding. Stiles almost bolts, but Derek lays a hand on his arm and starts firmly guiding him into the bathroom. It's still warm from Derek's shower, apparently, and the heat makes his cheeks tingle. "I'm-Fine."

The words are spat out because Stiles isn't sure what else can be said. Desperate for deflection and this is the one time he can't quite find it, can't quite say it. "Uh-huh."

"No. Really. I'm fine. I just need to call my dad."

There's a look, then, something calculating and curious. Derek deposits him on the toilet seat and pulls out a wash cloth. "Sheriff Stilinski."

"Yeah, duh." Even if Stiles' has stumbled into an alternate universe or, most likely, a delusion filled haunted house his dad is still the Sheriff. He's been the Sheriff since Stiles was twelve.

"Where were you?" The wash cloth is almost too hot when it brushes over Stiles' cheek but that's probably because he's still chilled from being outside all this time.

"Bay Berry." Stiles wonders if this is all a curse. Perhaps if he shakes Derek hard enough they will both wake up and find themselves in what's left of the Hale house. Or maybe he's still on the side of the road. Dreaming.

"No-I mean..." Derek looks concerned now and the expression makes Stiles' stomach churn. He shakes his head and Stiles suddenly notices that his hair is longer now. It flips slightly over his eyes as he turns. "I'll get you those pants."

"What's wrong with my pants?" Stiles squawks as he takes the washcloth from Derek's hand. Sure his pants are dirty but it seems wrong, awkward, to be taking anyone else's clothing-especially doppelganger ghost Derek's.

"If you have to ask you haven't smelled them."

Stiles frowns at the bathroom door then leans down to sniff. "Oh-OH MY GOD."

There's a chuckle from the other room.

"Dude, just hurry up and give me those pants."

* * *

He's in Derek's clothes, a pair of pants that are slightly too big in the waist and a shirt that is roomier than anything he has ever lent Derek, before he realizes that this is all fine but that Derek hasn't called him Stiles the entire time. He was always Stilinski's kid. Stilinski's kid with a dubious look.

Stilinski's kid being patched up after being found on the side of the road.

Stilinski's kid.

And he hasn't even called home yet.

It hits Stiles like a freight train. This could be a nightmare. It could be some screwed up magic.

Either way, he can't sit on the edge of fake-Derek's bed talking about Lacrosse and the one game he played.

Someone from downstairs start's calling for dinner. The voice is sweet but commanding, and Stiles thinks _Mrs. Hale_.

And the next moment he is tumbling down the stairs-tripping over his feet and skidding across and down the banistered wall on the left side of the stairwell.

Derek is four steps behind him, his stupid face reading surprise as Stiles breezes past the other boy's mother.

Because it couldn't be anyone else. Brown hair curling up around her ears. A kind smile twisted, now, in shock. Stiles met her a few times when his mom came over for tea. She looks older now-more lines around her eyes. Lips.

And it is only in seeing her for the barest moment that Stiles is sure. This Mrs. Hale is a ghost of would-have-beens. The things here are not real and he has to get to Scott, to Dr. Deaton, to _somebody_, to fix this.

Because Derek doesn't know.

* * *

He steals the camaro. Steals is a strong word though.

So, he hotwires it with intent to return.

Stiles catches sight of Derek's face as he speeds off. Also Peter's. Mrs. Hales. Phil and Jeni's faces in the window. Laura may or may not be yelling obscenities, and Stiles sends a silent _sorry you are all dead and therefore make believe_ as he tears out of there and onto the road.

He doesn't go home. His dad is awesome, but he's never explained the whole werewolf thing and he doesn't want to now.

So, Stiles goes to Scott-because he got Scott through weird shit and now it's Scott's turn to pull him down to earth.

The car is left out front as he climbs up the tree to the window. With luck, Allison won't be there. Without it-well, Stiles had courted less attractive peep shows in the past.

Through the window. Stiles gets two feet closer to Scott's empty bed before a baseball bat slams into his chest.

"Dude-" Stiles wheezes, blinks at him, and then collapses onto Scott's carpet.

"Who-" Scott still has the bat raised, as though Stiles could ever put up more of a fight against a baseball bat, and he glares down without comprehension. "Who the hell are you?"

Stiles is sprawled against his elbows, eyes watering. He flicks a three fingered 'hello' to Scott, "Dude-it's just me!"

"Just _who?_"

Stiles hopes there is a god and that for some reason, in the middle of winter, Scott has developed temporary blindness because there's no other explanation that makes any sense. "Stiles!" He sits up a little more and wheezes. "Stiles. You know. Your best friend. Stiles _Stilinski_."

Scott might not be the brightest bulb in the pack but even he has to remember his best friend.

"Stiles? Stiles disappeared when I was _eight_." The words are worse than the baseball bat, which is lowered to the ground before Stiles' eyes. "Dude! Have you called your dad yet?"

"No." Stiles means-No, I haven't. No, I found myself on the side of the road. Alone. Without a car or a phone. No, I was at the Hale's house until seven thirty tonight talking with ghosts of people who should have been. No and you're supposed to be my best friend. "No."

He gets up with Scott still trying to talk-"Hey, I have a phone. We can call them now!"-one hand pushing his friend to the side and the other cradling his aching ribs.

"No." Stiles lurches to the window. "No. I'll-I'll go home. Now. I mean. Now."

He is lying.

Scott doesn't remember so there's only one place he can think of to go to try again. One more time. To get answers. Dr. Deaton.

The vet of magic-if anyone knows what's going on, what's happened, it'd be him, wouldn't it?

Yes.

Stiles almost falls off the roof in his haste to scramble down. He hotwires the car again. He's got it down to less than a minute, so Scott hasn't even gotten from his room to the stairs by the time he's gone.

* * *

It's eight thirty on a cold winter night when Stiles breaks into the vet's office. It's too late for visitors, but he had a feeling Dr. Deaton would be there anyway.

He's right.

The man freezes over his accounting books when Stiles storms in-all nervous energy thrown everywhere and a hazy understanding of what's going on. "They're all alive."

Stiles is so worked up he's bitten his lip open and hasn't noticed. The gravel is off his face and he's relatively clean otherwise but he feels tight, close to bursting.

Scott didn't know who he was.

Derek. Derek and his family.

"I don't know what's going on." And neither did Dr. Deaton from the look on his face, but Stiles can't stop now that he's slammed forward into the one office he's sure-_sure_ the person there will understand. "I woke up and it was winter. And then there were the Hales. Only the Hales are _dead_."

And isn't that an unfortunate turn of phrase. Dr. Deaton stands, serious and unintimidated by the frazzled teen pacing across his floor. "The Hales are dead?"

"No-yes-no." Stiles runs a hand through his hair and sucks on his bottom lip. "They were. Now they're not." He lets out a breath thats more of a whine. "Dr. Deaton _I don't know what's going on._"

"That makes two of us." The man keeps his distance. Four feet away he stops, puts out his hands. "How about you sit down and tell me about it."

And Stiles' might have-only next the door burst open and there is Derek. Leather jacket, serious faced. Derek.

Stiles wishes he could be sure that this was the Derek he knows but he just came from Scott's and he still has the bruises to prove that nothing is as it seems.

"Derek." Doctor Deaton sounds relieved and Stiles feels sick. "This boy was just telling me he met your family..."

"Yeah." Derek walks over and sends an apologetic smile Deaton's way. "Sorry. He's a little confused. It's, uh, apparently Sheriff Stilinski's son."

"Stiles?" It's the first time he's heard his name from someone else's mouth, discounting the failure that was visiting Scott, all day. Stiles sags against the vet table, wheezing and trying to keep his arms from skittering uselessly over the metal. He's nervous. Nervous. Scared. Everything is _wrong, wrong, wrong_.

"Yeah, I called-"

The door to the vet's office swings open again.

Stiles thinks he know's what to expect but he doesn't. His dad is not so much of a surprise. Law enforcement browns, lines around his eyes-his lips tight. Stiles would expect nothing less.

And he probably could have handled that it if it was only him.

But trailing behind in a blue smock dress, dark hair pulled back with a tie, is a woman. She's thin boned but tall. She's as tall as he remembered. He'd be eye to eye with her now. Her lips look thin in the light but her coloring is healthy.

He doesn't remember her ever looking so _well_.

Stiles feels his mouth dry. He stares. They stare back-still standing in the doorway.

It's one moment. Two. Stiles can't breath. His chest seizes and in a bid to throw off the panic he jerks himself hard into the metal table edge. It hurts, but it hurts more to look at the people in the doorway. His father has one hand behind him, holding his mother's hand. It's too much.

Stiles screams.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles tells the doctors, the police officers,the doleful expression on his father's face, and even the knowing look in his mother's eyes: he doesn't remember anything.

Where was he? He doesn't remember.

How did he end up on the side of the road? He doesn't remember.

Where did those bruises come from? He doesn't remember.

What did he say to Dr. Deaton? He doesn't remember.

What was he talking about to the Hales? He doesn't remember.

Where did he get those pants? That he does remember-but he only smiles at the jab. It feels like teasing because everything else just hurts.

From the hospital bed, Stiles notices his father looks older than he are lines along his brow and lips that Stiles swears weren't there before. His mother looks younger-hair lush, face carrying few of the lines he remembers tracing in her final weeks. Stiles sees nothing like the weight of sickness that had hung over his own mother and bowed her shoulders before the end.

His mother cups her hands around his face and gazes at him, as though mentally capturing every change since they last met. Stiles would be lying if he said he wasn't doing the same-hands clasped over her wrists and IV trailing down from his. This is their first meeting, really. Family only in his hospital room. He doesn't count Dr. Deaton's office.

Her hands are warm and soft, skin still drawn but not slack around the bones. Stiles doesn't know how to ask about the cancer. So he doesn't.

"You don't remember." It isn't a question. His dad shifts from side to side, still in his work clothes from two nights before, and then steps ever so slightly closer to the bed. Stiles realizes he's not the only one holding his breath.

"No." Stiles doesn't remember being taken to the hospital but he feels this piece of quiet and wonder, a stillness acutely through the artificial by the drugs in his veins. He feels numb. He feels rapturous. Stiles has no words, but looking at his parents, he feels the pull at his ribcage saying _this is not real, this is not real, this is not real-_but I want it to be.

"Genim." She says his first name like prayer, and Stiles closes his eyes, letting it wash over his paper hospital gown. "Genim."

Her fingers slide through his short buzzed hair, unable to quite grip him and Stiles feels like that is only right. She can't grip him-and he can't get a grip on this wonderful, terrible, world.

He doesn't belong here.

* * *

Stiles goes back to school, but only because he has to. It's been two weeks since he got out of the hospital but his mother hovers, scooping soup into his mouth and letting him linger in her kitchen, bathing himself in the scents of _home_ he never thought he'd smell again. Ginger, Rosemary, Thyme.

His father goes to work. Because he has to. When he comes home, he lingers around the edges of the kitchen or Stiles' untouched bedroom. It's as though his dad thinks that if he disrupts the ebb and flow of mother-son in the kitchen, at the table, before bed that he will destroy it.

Stiles understands. He worries about gripping either of them too tight-he thinks they might turn into smoke like mirages.

It's seven in the morning. If this were _his_ home, he'd already have packed his own lunch and been on his way to school. Instead he's standing in the freeze-frame of his bedroom circa 2003. The fifth Harry Potter book is still splayed open on his desk-spine cracked and pages gummed from flipping through. He had been on page 259 before he _disappeared_. His parents had added the others, but they were neatly left on a bookshelf, carefully preserved, and untouched. The whole room feels artificial save the bed which Stiles has left unmade since he claimed it.

"Are you sure? Are you sure you're ready?" His mother fiddles with his shirt collar, as though it's anything but a generic black t-shirt. _You still don't remember _is unspoken. It hangs between them, and Stiles pushes lies lower in his chest.

_Stiles Stilinski_, he thinks to himself, _you have managed to fall into an Alternate Universe and not run into a doppelganger. You should be happy. You shouldn't be rushing to school to try to find a way back._ He says instead, "I have to get back to life sometime, right?"

'They' say he's remarkably well-adjusted for what he must have gone through. 'They' say he's perfectly healthy.

"You're right," his mother breathes, and he think's its the most remarkable thing in the world. She is an inch shorter than him and the change in angle makes his breath catch-so different, so much the same. "Of course you're right." She braves a smile. "You need to get reacclimated. Can't spend forever in the kitchen."

"Exactly." Stiles doesn't want to think about all the things in the school that should be-but aren't.

"You do know I'm going to have to drive you," she continues and Stiles pulls up a face from his memory of bad daytime tv and sitcoms.

"_Mom_."

"You don't have a license, Stiles." She laughs, and it's like the sun is rising. She doesn't say, _it doesn't matter if you know how to hot-wire a car or not_. Stiles doesn't point it out either. She drives his powder-blue jeep with black doors because Stiles never inherited it. It was never his to begin with.

* * *

Stiles turns heads. He's never done that before, and he knows too much about Beacon Hills to think it's for any reason besides being missing for eight years.

The principal shows him to his locker, walks him through the halls to his classes. It's all the same- he even has the same classes. The only thing different is the fact he hasn't been here before and the people he passes in the hall give him blank looks-or appraising ones.

Stiles gets to first period ten minutes late and wonders if this is what it feels like to be the school crazy. Everyone stares. A few people whisper.

If it were possible, he would up his perception of Lydia as goddess of all-but she's already reached that level of perfection. It's been less than an hour and already he feels ready to snap at people.

* * *

He avoids Scott.

This worked wonderfully when he was at his parent's house (because it can't be his-not really. His dad is waiting for him all alone somewhere)-no one seemed willing to intrude there. Here, though, it's difficult. Scott is everywhere and they have nearly the same schedule. He sits two rows behind, three rows ahead, two spaces diagonal.

He's hard to ignore and it sets Stiles' teeth on edge because that's his _best friend_ but not. His haircut is too perfect. His grades are better. He still wheezes when he rushes in the hall.

And since when has Scott been that close with Danny?

Stiles sits through the first class wondering, _had they even had the chance to fall out of a tree together before he disappeared?_

Had they even been friends before he left (but, yes, he knows they were-knows it because his mother had framed pictures and hung them on the wall everywhere. Pictures of them on Halloween-a Skeleton and a Mad Scientist. Another set of them from some day he doesn't remember-covered in fake army paint and surrounded by fresh fall leaves.)

It's fourth period before Scott, who has somehow missed the memo that Stiles is a conflicted child-abductee just returned home, starts throwing small bits of eraser at him.

"Dude."

Stiles stares at the board and imagines drawing a hangman figure on it. _Two words. Seven letters._

"Dude."

Another piece in his nonexistent hair. Then another.

"_Dude_." Stiles turns and flicks his eyes to Scott's hair, then nose.

He looks the same. No, really. He looks again. Scott looks like he did before he was a werewolf-except maybe a bit neater. The only major difference is he's missing unsettling feeling Stiles has started to associate with _wolf_. He can't explain it any other way. He forces himself to smile and it comes out crooked. "Dude."

"What happened?" Scott leans forward and Stiles shoots him a blank look though he knows well what Scott means. The other boy huffs a whine. "Come on. You broke into my house. You're not going to tell me what's up with that?"

"I was-"

"McCall, since you seem to be so up to speed in this class you have time for side conversations how about you show us how to do problem number fifteen on the board."

Saved by the teacher. Stiles gives thanks for small blessings and ducks out of the classroom the moment the bell rings.

* * *

At lunch, he goes to one of the back tables, partially hidden by a soda machine. Stiles chooses these tables for two reasons:

One, Scott likely won't spot him-and, two, Erica used to sit there before she started sitting with Boyd and Isaac. Stiles remembers how Erica was before she was a wolf-he had classes with her. She was on the periphery of _known_ long before Stiles had a reason to get to know her. She was always the girl with the seizures. Nice enough-but she was _no_ Lydia Martin.

And that is why he chooses her now. He doesn't remember her well enough from before for it to be such a punch in the gut when she turns to look at him blankly as he slides into a seat two down from her. He feels less terrible about attempting to use the fact she once had a crush on him-once, long ago, and in another universe-here and now.

"Hey." Two finger wave, an icon of awkward cool to which Erica curls her lip in something that is more of a snarl than a smile. She waves back but it seems disjointed and somewhat sarcastic.

This is not the girl who wears miniskirts and high heels, the one who slams people into lockers and dirty dances in clubs. Erica, here, is a baggy sweater and large bags under her eyes. Her hair is not carefully maintained, it hangs limp and slightly greasy. There's a nervousness to her that Stiles doesn't remember until he faces it-cuticles rough from picking and a graze of skin gone from her lower lip.

He tries again. "Hey. Can you tell me something about, uh, what they serve here?"

Stiles has had two weeks to prepare for this and he still can't stick a proper conversation starter. She jerks slightly away, nose wrinkled, and Stiles reminds himself: this is not the girl that had a crush on is a girl who doesn't know who he is.

Or knows only the town gossip about the kid they found on the side of the road. "Why are you talking to me?"

"W-what?" Of all the things, Stiles wasn't expecting that. Curiosity, maybe. Interest. "Why wouldn't I talk-"

"Look," Erica has that look on her face like Stiles has just done the stupidest thing ever-it's an expression he's used to seeing her don while playing with her nails, red lips twisted in a pouty smirk. It's a good look for her, even if it often results in pain for him. "You just got back from wherever you were. Everyone's interested in trying to get that story out of you. You could be establishing a lot better friends so-Why talk to me?"

Stiles stares, mouth open, and then hurriedly tries to clear his mouth and find an explanation that isn't _you're my only friend who I don't know well enough to feel hurt by totally lack of knowledge while still being likely to help me_.

That is the truths but it's not something he can say.

"I just wanted to..." Get away from the stares. Find someone to talk to that didn't hurt. Avoid Lydia Martin. Find out if Allison even goes to this school. Stop half-yearning for Jackson to make snide comments at my expense. Verify again that _this isn't a dream_. "Know if the school lunches are even edible here."

Stiles looks at the table and belatedly realizes she has no food in front of her.

The look she gives him could melt glass, but he leans forward, desperate to try again, when a perfectly dressed Lydia Martin slides into the seat across from him. "Do you ever look up?"

Stiles can't help it. Years of pent up yearning causes his gobsmacked expression to go from Erica to Lydia. "What?"

"Do you ever look up." She's studying him. Eyeing him, really. Like she's mentally filing away his measurements and assessing his potential. "I've been trying to get your attention for several periods now."

"Uh." What can Stiles say to that? Nothing.

"Yes. I think I remember you now." Her stare doesn't waver. Measuring him up might not be too far off the mark. This Lydia Martin has never been attacked and, from the conversations he's overheard-never fallen from grace. Always dating the Lacrosse Captain. Always playing dumb-but never surprised or caught unawares.

She taps a pencil to her perfectly painted lips and narrows her eyes. "You were that weird kid. You gave me a box of chocolates in third grade."

It hadn't just been a box of chocolates-it had been a box of chocolates with a perfectly tied pink ribbon and six choices for filling. It had been a stupid decision, apparently, no matter what universe Stiles was in. He winces in remembered humiliation-and then realizes he had been having a conversation before this.

He glances to his right and-Erica is nowhere to be found. Not even a scrap of paper is left.

Stiles slaps his hands against the cafeteria tables, hard enough to make Lydia jump. The frustration that courses through him is quick and vicious. "Yeah." It's more of an attack than a statement. This is two weeks of knowledge and fear boiling under his skin looking for an outlet. "And you are the girl who could place out of math in this school but pretends to be a fucking moron."

He regrets it as soon as it falls out of his mouth. Lydia is the girl of his dreams and this, had it been any other fantasy, would have played right into it. He's thought about it, moving away and coming back. If reality were that simple he imagines he'd be the interesting new kid who swept the brilliant Lydia Martin off her feet.

But this is not a fantasy and he does not belong here.

He leaps to his feet, scattering pencils from the open back end of his backpack and beats a hasty retreat towards his next period. "Sorry-Sorry. I gotta go."

His face burns-and he has no one to blame but himself.

He is the one who feels worse for failing to manipulate a former acquaintance than for wanting to manipulate her in the first place. He took it out on the mirror image of a girl he has loved for what seems like forever.

Stiles runs a hand through his hair and turns from the classroom door to the exit he knows is never locked.

* * *

Stiles ends up spending the rest of the day back behind the school waiting for it to be over. He's pretty sure he could just call his mom but the idea feels weird in more ways than one. So he just settles a ways away from the lacrosse field and thinks.

He's had time to think before-he's been home two weeks and his parents had to sleep sometime. They didn't at first. He knows because he waited for it-so he could walk around the house and catalog all the things that were _mom_ that he didn't have at home.

He ended up cataloging all the things he was missing, too.

This is the first time Stiles has time to think coupled with experiences outside his parents home. He doesn't count the first night he was here, he doesn't remember it well anymore. The panic burned the memories.

Scott, he's pretty sure, is human. Erica is definitely human. He's seen slips of Isaac and Boyd and they must be _must be_ human, too.

Which turns his stomach because he knows what happened to Isaac. Stiles never got the details but whispers and memories are more than enough for his imagination.

He pushes that out of his mind.

This isn't _his_ home. It is someone else's, and he has no idea how to get back. Right now he's breathing cold air when it should be summer, and his dad is _alone_, He's probably eating microwave meals with hard liquor. That's not even considering the very real possibility that something terrible is happening and that's how he got sent _here_.

Assuming he's not dreaming anyway. Stiles can't quite shake the feeling that _maybe-_

Because this universe is too wonderful, too terrible, to think of as real.

"Hey-Kid." Stiles looks up, recognizing the greeting, and tries to smile.

"Hey, Laura." He doesn't apologize for stealing her car. Gray clouds are rolling in, casting dull shadows around him even though he knows it can't be much later than three.

"I called your mom-asked if I could give you a ride home." She has her hands shoved deep into her pockets as she shifts her weight. It should look self-conscious, but it comes out self-assured. A woman throwing her weight around visibly like a slow moving pendulum.

"Yeah?" Stiles climbs to his feet, brushing off bits of dried leaves. "What did she say?"

"To make sure to bring you back before dinner." Laura pulls a hand out of her pocket and thumbs her nose which is red with cold. "Come on. I left Derek in the car."

Stiles shivers unconsciously then barks out a laugh. It's so cold that the sound gets caught in his chest, or maybe that's just the day. "How long has he been in there? You know there are animal cruelty laws, right?"

Maybe he's a horrible person, but at least Laura seems to agree with him. She laughs and grabs his shoulder as he walks passed, moving to lead him. "Don't worry. I cracked the window.." She pulls him around the practice fields, putting herself bodily between the team going through warm-ups and Stiles. "So how much did school suck today?"

He laughs again, though it's low and throaty, hardly a laugh at all.

"Thought so." She smiles a bit ruefully and then gestures towards the camaro-good as new. Derek is sitting in the passenger seat, frowning fiercely at a textbook that looks as thick as his arm. "Don't let him know I told you-but it was his idea to pick you up."

It doesn't make up for the ruined Lydia fantasy, the failed attempt at comradely with Erica, or the fact he just realized that Isaac might be in worse shape here than he was at home-but Stiles can't help but feel a little warmed by it anyway.

"Just don't think this jailbreak is going to be all fun and games." Laura opens the passenger side door, and Derek dutifully steps out-book under his arm. She pops the seat and then steps back to gesture with a flourish.

Stiles climbs in, watches the seat close back behind him, and only then hears Laura continue, "We have a lot to talk about, I think."

Not-Derek climbs back in and grins as he tosses Stiles a juice box like he's ten years old instead of sixteen. "Don't look so grim. We're at least going to feed you first."

Stiles is pretty sure that's not as comforting as Derek intended-especially since Derek smiling still sort of creeps him out-but at least the juice turns out to be wild berry fruit punch instead of grape. After today Stiles knows to look for the silver lining.


End file.
